This invention relates to a method for wearing and taking off a protective suit which is used when entering a special contaminated zone or other working areas such as "clean room" segregated from a general on-limits area.
Wearing of a protective suit is required for working in a radioactive material contaminated zone in atomic power facilities, particularly in an area where plutonium is treated. Of course, such protective suit must be worn not only for ordinary works in the off-limits zones but also when emergency entrance is required in the event of an accident. A clothing for insulating the worker from the outer atmosphere is also required in an area where a noxious substance is treated or in a so-called clean room. When entering a working area such as a contaminated zone or a clean room by wearing such protective suit, it is important to effect perfect segregation between the inside and outside of the working area as well as the inside and outside of the protective suit, and particularly perfect shut-off or confinement of contaminant is imperative when wearing or taking off the protective suit.
Various methods are known for wearing and take-off of the protective suit used for working in the specific areas such as radioactive material contaminated zones, and typical of these methods are a so-called "la carene" system and an over-suit system. The former system is a method in which the worker gets into or out of the protective suit through a ring-shaped double port. This method, however, has a serious structural defect that the contaminant around the port could spread into the non-contaminated area. The over-suit system is a method in which the worker passes two or three independent chambers before entering the contaminated zone and he is required to wear or take off one over-suit in each of said chambers. This method takes a long time until entering or leaving the working zone and, also, since the over-suits are all disposable or "throw-away" items, they add up to the volume of waste material.